I’m not sure how many conservatives actually exist in that state but this was not a fight conservatives took too. Look at the reception Rubio is drawing. Look even At Rand Paul. Look at Scott Brown or even J.D.’s latest entrance. this race never draw much notice here on an activist site. Which means there was no massive organization to present an alternative choice. Lacking unity and lacking committment by the movement the choice was defined with money and name recognition. Kirk had this.
I wish he hadn’t won but I said a few days ago to expect this because conservatives NEVER rallied here. Okay a few did but they fought an uphill battle. Hell, Erick at redstate only spoke last WEEK about maybe rallying conservatives to make it a race. What does that say?
Conservatives can’t just decide a week before to maybe pay attention to the race and expect polls to miraculously flip. The NY-23 race at least had a month to rally supporters and just barely lost.
Actually the majority of Republicans in this state are conservative. But they split their vote and the Combine Publicrats almost always win.
Just look at the Republican primary for governor: Dillard, Brady, Proft, Andrzejewski are all conservatives and they got 65 % of the Republican primary votes. Thankfully Ryan and McKenna split the liberal Republican vote and it looks like Brady will win over Dillard by a hair—in this case, both wings split their vote and we, for the first time in decades, many decades, get a conservative candidate for governor and a super-conservative for Lt. Governor (Plummer is top-notch).
So Kirk won because there simply was no decent conservative alternative. But the party as a whole in this state is not liberal. Its leadership has been in a cozy relationship for decades with the Democrats and they’ve always managed to coopt or divide and conquer the majority grass-roots conservatives.
You’re right on the mark. Only members of the Ostrich Brigade would be surprised by this result.
I voted for Pat Hughes yesterday. He had zero name recognition, and, let’s be candid: The average voter is pretty clueless, and politically lazy, and will quickly pull the lever for a name he or she recognizes, no matter that person’s agenda.
One would have to go south of I-80 to even begin seeing some conservative areas of Illinois, but they are out there, just the same.